**This week with your MF camera, Apr 15-21 2023**

Sunset at Panama City Beach this evening, two shot pano using the GF50mm.

PCB Sunset by Stephen Brown, on Flickr

Very nice.

Condo Man - GFX 100S, GF 110/2, f/6.4, 1/950, ISO 100, small crop area of larger image

One more from today:
Ponce de Leon Springs, four panel stitch with the GF50mm

Ponce de Leon Springs by Stephen Brown, on Flickr

Somewhere in Africa, or a small town in the Midsouth? 50sII, 35-70mm. Hoya R72.

Steven Brown, Nice. Like the simple but effective composition.

Cultural question. What is a condo? Is it a US term for a building divided into self contained apartments? If so, what's the difference between a condo and an apartment block?

Buildings of multiple occupation in the UK tend to be called:

Purpose built flats (a self contained property in a block of several with shared communal areas such as stairwells, entrance foyer, car parking spaces or garages in a separate block usually around the back of the property)

Flat conversions (usually a large house that has been later split into separate flats)

Bedsits (usually a large house that has been divided into separate rooms with their own keys. Bathrooms are normally shared. Sometimes a room is made into a communal kitchen or lounge but mostly not. Each room usually has some kind of cooking facility such as a microwave or a Baby Belling miniature cooker. Usually bedsits are rented by students or young people as their first place away from the family home. Or where the newly divorced and impoverished end up, sadly).

Maisonettes (these look like houses from the outside but they are normally two separate properties, one upstairs, one downstairs with separate entrances).

Terrace houses. These are strings of separate houses, joined together in a row with dividing party walls. To be a terrace there must be at least 3. The houses at either end have just one party wall, the houses in the middle have two. End of terraces are usually more desirable than middle of terraces. The terrace shares a single roof that spans the terrace, separated by vertical walls. Example: 2 up 2 down victorian workers houses).

Semi detached houses ( these are separate houses joined at the middle by a shared party wall. One house makes up the left side of the building, one a mirror image on the right. Probably the most common house type in the UK, many cities and towns have massive sprawling suburbs made of semis often built in the 1930s).

A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual owners.

As Jim said, it's an "ownership arrangement."

In the USA the "condo phenomenon" gained steam in the 80s and 90s. Large apartment building owners, wishing to recoup all their investments in their multi-tenant buildings, announced to the renters that a building would be "converted" to a condominium and that they had until a particular deadline to purchase their particular apartment (at full price) or vacate. This happened especially in areas of cities undergoing "gentrification, but not always. Essentially, displacing many low-income renters who had no such financial capability (that's why they were renters).

On the other side of strange real estate "custom," my wife and I bought a very nice, free-standing, 2 story home in a 25 home community all built by the same builder. The architecture was the same throughout, with pleasant individual variations. Each homeowner owned his/her individual property but the 25 homeowners were jointly responsible for the upkeep of common areas and the maintenance of the road within the complex - a common arrangement here called a "Homeowners Association," (HOA). No big deal.

When we sold the house the realtor informed us that our 25-home community was officially known to the county as a Condominium and had to advertised as such. The word condominium implied "apartment" to potential buyers and significantly diminished the market price. Our home sold for less than other homes nearby who were not in our "Condo," even though our house was bigger and much nicer.

Here's the uncropped image of my post (without the extensive PS perspective edits) showing some of the rest of the 3-story building

Rich

Lavender in spring : GFX100S with GF 80

Ah right, it's not a building type but an ownership arrangement. Here we have freehold and leasehold ownership arrangements.

Freehold is where you own the property outright, leasehold is similar in that you own the property but not in perpetuity. Leaseholds can vary in length but are typically 99 years. In theory, leaseholds revert to the freeholder at the end of the lease, but there are mechanisms in place to get around that, either by extending the lease or buying out the freehold.

When we lived in a flat, it was a leasehold arrangement, but the original freehold owner has sold the freehold to a flat management company created and owned by the leaseholders of each of the 12 flats (a limited non trading company similar to the one created to operate this forum). I think we all had a £1 share. The flat management company (of which my wife was the company sec when we lived there) sorted out the maintenance, cleaning of communal spaces etc and granted the leaseholders extensions when they needed them. When you moved out, you transferred your £1 share to the purchaser.

Another ownership arrangement you see here operates in some social housing providers. The purchaser buys a part share of a flat and pays rent on the other share retained by the social housing association. The main advantage is that home owner can get on to the property ladder they couldn't otherwise afford. And they can benefit from any appreciation on their share of the property when they move on. It's usually a better deal than pure renting, especially given the housing shortage has driven rental prices up to ludicrous and unaffordable levels. Of course there are long waiting lists and selection criteria. The provision of basic housing in a rich country sounds like it ought to be a human right but I despair at the future for young people. And I say this as a boomer, a member of the generation that is supposed to have cause all these problems for the young.

We lived in Hawaii on Maui for 15 years. There, "Freehold" and "Leasehold" were the major forms of property ownership.

I could never understand the logic of buying a house "Leasehold." There was no advantage to it in any way, and every disadvantage. One had to make a downpayment of 10-20%, secure a 30 year mortgage at the prevailing rate and make payments. Exactly the same as Freehold. There was no difference in the selling price of one type vs the other. At the end of the Leasehold, the property reverted back to the Freeholder. Huh?

Crazy system there.

Rich

"The Other Woman" 50sII, Zeiss 80-200mm.

A man and his dog
Nikon 180mm 2.8D

Lookout by Stephen Brown, on Flickr

50sII, 35-70mm, R72, and some other magic tricks.

Pokhara, very early morning, getting ready to go for a sunrise view.